Monday, October 1, 2012

Evening comes, as does the dawn

When I returned to Kenya last week, a few people from my community sent notes reminding me to write...“Travel safe and
keep writing!” I marvel at how gracious people are given my lack of posts in
recent years - they still encourage me, and act as if writing is still something I do frequently.

The truth is, it is harder and harder to write. Often, it’s
because there is not time. Perhaps more than that, it’s because there’s no
brain space: no room for inspiration - just for rest in preparation for the
next day and all that must be tackled.

Sometimes it’s utterly due to life in Kenya. Sometimes it’s
not Kenya at all, it’s just me, my baggage, my journey. And sometimes it gets
too personal, which is funny, because historically it had to be – it was the only damn way to
tell the story honestly.

Mostly it’s just exhaustion that has no equal and no sense.
What did I do today? I took an early taxi to work and cooked dinner for a
friend and her family. But the day came full of tragic news from friends at
home, sore knees from yesterday’s stumble and cockroaches hell bent on keeping
my heart pounding. As simple a day as any, and yet each hint of a breeze or brush against a piece of string
sent me leaping for certain a dirt-brown creature was upon me. That anxiety accompanied the day's ordinariness, so that tonight just five days in I’m exhausted. So strange after a rejuvenating dinner that the nightly crash from balancing the blend
of inspiration and excitement and its counter of anxiety and fear of
failure still comes.

I’ve done enough work in the
last year to know that no dream is realized without confronting this fear. I
know that discomfort is the companion of opportunity and growth, that success can mean
pushing through unbearable doubt and loneliness. So I’m doing it, and loving so
many of the moments therein. I feel blessed and fulfilled so much of the time –
and I share that in the small ways I can since I rarely can do so in longer
thoughts on the page. But the personal, and the honesty and the damn-it-all remains. Tonight, I guess I need to share that here. Like the ache of muscles after a brilliant workout, the struggle is sweet - yet still a struggle.